Jim Carrey and friends opt for consciousness-raising over Lakers 11:14 AM PT, Jun 5 2009 Some might say that spirituality and Hollywood go together like sensitivity and pro wrestling.

But that’s just the kind of habitual/stereotypical thinking that more than 500 entertainment industry types vowed to vanquish at a conference Thursday night as they came together for the first meeting of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (GATE).

Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and movie star/seeker Jim Carrey headlined the more-than-three-hour session at an auditorium on the Fox lot in Century City. Along with singer Melissa Etheridge and several other speakers, they urged their colleagues in film, television, music and other media to transcend the tawdry and mundane with higher-minded fair.

It must have been important to those packed into the meeting. They missed the Lakers' opening championship-round game to be there.

Producer John Raatz, who formed the organization, said the time is ripe in the entertainment industry for an “up-leveling of consciousness” that, in turn, would lead to more work delving into the spiritual and divine.

Many attending the session and pledging to join in future work follow the teachings of Tolle, the best-selling author of “The Power of Now” and other books. The German-born Tolle echoes the Buddhist view that most of humanity is captive to the mind and obsessive thinking, patterns that can be broken through meditation and other techniques.

Participants said they hoped their own spiritual practices would free them from the mundane and prurient and lead them to projects with high aspirations, like combating hunger. HBO executive Scott Carlin told the gathering -- which included Garry Shandling, Billy Zane and Jackson Browne -- that audiences were yearning “for the sense of being nourished deeply.”

When he took the stage near the end of the evening, Carrey both embraced and satirized his nascent guru role. In a short film clip introducing his appearance, he cast a beatific gaze on the audience, delivering the message: “I’m Jim Carrey and I’ve come to free the world from sin.”

The actor said he had become locked in his own thoughts in part because of a childhood spent trying to entertain his terribly ill mother. Later in life he had the epiphany that most suffering came from fixating on one's own thoughts, while “heaven” could be found all around, by living in the present moment.

After making that breakthrough, Carrey said, “I want to take as many people with me as I can.”

Tolle’s remarks closed the evening. While he encouraged GATE to do more, the teacher said he had already found transcendent moments — ones that could help people “get out of the box of their minds” — in a fair number of films.

He cited “Groundhog Day,” “Titanic,” “The Horse Whisperer” and “American Beauty” as movies that incorporated important spiritual themes such as impermanence, stillness and the beauty of everyday things.

“I woke up and suddenly got it,” Carrey says. “I understood suddenly how my thoughts were just an illusory thing. And how 'thought' is responsible for most of the suffering we experience ... and suddenly I had this amazing feeling of freedom – from myself, from my problems. I saw that I was bigger than what I do. I was bigger than my body. I was no longer a fragment of the universe – I was the universe.”

“’Dumb and Dumber,’” he adds, “is a study of pre-egoic innocence.”

This is not an act. The star was one of the headliners at Thursday night's meeting of GATE -- the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment, a newly formed outfit of producers and artists with a shared enthusiasm for New Age uplift. GATE was founded by John Raatz as an effort to gather like-minded Hollywood creatives to promote spiritually positive entertainment ("spiritual" mainly meaning the Eastern/Zen variety, of course).

The inaugural and rather exclusive GATE gathering, held on the Fox Studios lot, consisted of four hours of speeches that were alternately moving, confusing, dull, self-important, inspirational and silly.

-- 7:30 p.m.: The audience is stuffed with about 500 rich Hollywood hippies, God love ’em. You wouldn’t think diamonds and patchouli could ever be found on the same person, but welcome to GATE. Most of the audience (which includes Adrian Grenier, Jackson Browne, Virginia Madsen, Garry Shandling and Billy Zane) are here see the event’s headliners, Carrey and Eckhart Tolle – the “Power of Now” author whom Oprah Winfrey helped promote into an international sensation.

In his books, Tolle teaches that time is an illusion. The “past” is nothing but your own imperfect memory and the “future” is your own inaccurate prediction. All we have is "the Now." Except this event has about 11 supporting acts before Carrey and Tolle will take the stage. Illusion or no, that’s too much time to sit in the Zanuck Theater on a weeknight without dinner.

-- 8 p.m.: The audience is told that movies such as the unlikely documentary hit “What the Bleep Do We Know” and Tolle's books demonstrate there’s enormous market for positive entertainment products. That you can have your inner peace and turn a profit too.

One speaker praises the GATE audience as "a collective of pure intelligence,” which suggests modesty is not a requirement for enlightenment.

Another, Peter Shiao, CEO of the Orb Media Group, says, “We create images that people all over the world see as reality. With that power comes responsibility. This is about delivering rich transformational experiences that people want to pay money for ... transformational media is already upon us every time Barack Obama is on TV ... Tonight is about putting a name on this movement -- this is our Constitutional Hall."

8:30 p.m.: HBO executive Scott Carlin notes that Twitter, of all things, suggests the world is ready for their inspirational message.

“People are literally Twittering their lives away at 140 characters or less,” Carlin said. “It’s a massive manifestation of mankind’s need to belong.”

Twitter has always struck me as a massive manifestation of mankind’s need for attention and/or online traffic, but perhaps that’s just being cynical.

9 p.m.: Melissa Etheridge takes the stage.

At first the singer talks about how “fame is a wicked trick” and laments discovering the “emptiness of being rich and famous.” The crowd laughs knowingly, and you want to throw things.

Then Etheridge details her spiritual awakening five years ago that occurred while she was enduring chemotherapy for the treatment of breast cancer. She delivers her story with so much wit and wisdom that the audience gives her a deserved standing ovation.

9:30 p.m.: Intermission / schmoozing.

To be clear: I'm not mocking earnest Hollywood power players who tout the idea of creating entertainment that dares to try and make the world a better place (at least, I'm not only doing that).

I went to this event because I’ve read each of Tolle’s books and listened to every one of his CDs as part of my self-help-product addiction. I understand “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” I know the “Rules of Work” and respect “The 48 Laws of Power.” I quit my previous publication because I was in a career cul-de-sac instead of “The Dip.” I’ve elected to “Awaken the Giant Within” at least three times.

I am, in short, a huge sucker for purchasing ways to improve my life from Amazon.com. But once at GATE I’m reminded of Dennis Miller’s line, from long ago when he was funny, saying he doesn’t mind doing drugs he just doesn’t like the some of people you have to do drugs with.

10 p.m.: The event is running late. This is what happens when hippies throw events and encourage "free form" speaking. They don't want to impose a time limit or restrictions. They should have hired a hardcore Protestant as stage manager.

Jim Carrey is up. The actor makes the following point, which nicely sums up the ideals behind GATE:

“We live on a planet where we are all really crammed together and yet we do really well,” Carrey says. “[But] when we watch the news and we watch entertainment it’s all about conflict. And you imagine that the world is an explosive, horrifying place. It’s really non-representative of the way the world is and what the world wants.”

10:45 p.m.: Finally, Tolle. The man generally preaches against people distracting themselves with TV and movies. But that line of thinking wouldn’t go over very well here. So Tolle instead focuses on ways some entertainment can be spiritually beneficial.

For instance, Tolle notes war movies such as “All Quiet on the Western Front” that show the insanity of war can be transformational.

Movies that show spiritual growth of the main character, such as “The Last Samurai,” can help.

Particularly, Tolle cites the modern classic “Groundhog Day,” which has a very Tolle-esque storyline -- Bill Murray's jaded character is trapped repeating in the same torturous small town, reliving the same day over and over, until he finally stops resisting the present moment, makes the most of this one day and accepts everybody around him. In the end, the character decides to stay in the town.

Tolle also praised movies that show the impermanence of life, such as scenes in "Titanic" that contrast a young Rose Dawson and her older self, along with the gleaming new ship and its real-life wreck.

Such moments, Tolle says, give viewers a sense of mortality that can propel them to better embrace the present.

As Tolle speaks, his points and melodious voice result in a visible transformation in the audience.

Several people around me are actually achieving another state of consciousness.

Unfortunately, that state isn’t enlightenment. It’s sleep.

The present moment is all they have, after all. And if they don’t get some shut-eye now, they’re going to be tired tomorrow when they have to wake up and go to work ... all over again.

From what i can gather they want film-makers etc to view the medium as an opportunity to impart a positive spiritual message.......to reach out to the audience in a deeper way........... I confess, i assumed a lot of filmakers/writers were already doing this...... ..........i wonder why they need to make it a 'named' movement....... ........i'm totally for it though.........

he's been more revealing about it though....with the wee films and Eckhart stuff.......
but he's always been into spiritual stuff, Jim's spent his whole life searching.........
and perhaps, just perhaps he's begun to find it.......

yeah, well adult life at least.........he's been saying in interviews for years that he experimented with 'new age' stuff from very early in his career.......like the colour therapy with the ribbons and stuff........and the self help books......he's been searching for that missing piece of harmony everyone craves but few achieve.........

Yeah, tell me about it. I really don't believe he is a spiritual seeker with someone like JENNY on his side. Doesn't JENNY believe in cristals? I wonder what object Jim is seeking to be spiritual with?